He was active during Badman times (2009-2010), and he doesn't appear to like home educators or the fact of home education altogether.
A lot of home edders will know that a bill has been put forward by Lord Solely in the House of Lords. It's a private member's bill and the talk is that it's unlikely to be successful. But who knows?
The consequences of changes proposed are discussed here: http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/home-ed-bill-hl11-2017-faq.html
Now there are so many things wrong with this bill and the Lord himself seems to be an inveterate enemy of home education.
Is it a coincidence that Wales seems to be busy having another bash at home educators too? It's been driven there by the Children's Commissioner.
The attacks are reminiscent of Badman's over-the-top Review of Home education in 2009 which was stripped of its glory, fisked, gutted and utterly shamed by MPs, Lords, home educators and various lovely supporters of educational freedom. That didn't stop it nearly becoming law.
The state doesn't like home education, of course, because home education shows up their pallid and parlous excuse for educational provision. But, as an ex-home educator, I can say home educators are not just going to sit by and allow the freedoms of their children to be taken away by Lords, Ladies, MPs or anyone else.
The media, naturally, have been joining in the hunt with their articles about home educators (generally, unflattering, I'm told, but I haven't read them). Equally, the good Lord Soley himself is concerned about all these unlicensed and uncontrolled schools that are, supposedly, radicalising home educators. Most of this talk is highly insulting to our Muslim home educators who just want to do better for the children than the state schooling can do.
Wouldn't you think with the UK in a terrible state on all sorts of points, that officials would
be interested in putting other things right instead of picking on a group that, mainly, already gets things right?
At any rate, home educators are readying themselves for yet another fight for their children to be educated in peace. Speaking in favour of the status quo, here's what two homeschoolers in two other countries have to say:
Russian homeschooling leader Irina Shamolina said that H.L. 11’s philosophy is unpleasantly close to that of the former Soviet Union, which she experienced as a child:
“We in Russia are shocked by the totalitarian spirit of the approach the government of GB is taking in treating the natural right of the parents to raise and educate their children the way parents prefer to do it. The situation is taking place in the country which proclaims itself to be a model of a true democracy!”
Polish homeschooling leader Marek Budajczak was also deeply critical of the U.K. proposal, saying:
“[T]here are two opposite political mentalities in Europe: the British one (inspiring citizens’ freedom) and the continental one (of Prussian origin). Changing legislation on home education in England and Wales would equate expelling fundamental parents’ rights in favor of statism. We in Poland know the destructive consequences of the last one. England shouldn’t become a secondary Europe; they should be faithful to their own political heritage.”
From https://www.hslda.org/hs/international/unitedkingdom/201707120-british-lord-targets-homeschoolers-for-repression.asp
